The White Team sat Dennis Bonvie out and put Mathieu Roy back in with Daniel Carcillo and Stephen Dixon. Kris Letang was back in, playing with Josef Melichar and Alain Nasreddine played with Rob Scuderi. Paul Bissonette did not play. The other lines and defense pairings stayed the same.

The Black team played Tim Wallace in place of Joe Jensen with Jordan Morrison and Tyler Kennedy. Micki DuPont and Ryan Lannon did not play, but Wade Skolney, who had been on the White team, was paired with Noah Welch. Michal Sersen played with Matt Carkner. The rest of Black's lines and pairings did not change.

Marc-Andre Fleury played the first half for White. He stopped both penalty shots he faced and gave up 1 goal on 7 shots. (More on that goal later.) Jocelyn Thibault played the first half for Black. He was 3 of 4 on penalty shots and gave up 2 even strength goals.

Daniel Carcillo put White up 1-0 after a Tim Wallace hook, making a pretty good move on Thibault. Thibault stopped Sidney Crosby's penalty shot attempt after a Michal Sersen interference call. John LeClair scored from a sharp angle to Thibault's right to give White a 2-0 lead. I think it went in off of someone else. Dominic Moore got the only assist. Ryan Malone had a chance to get Black on the board after a Moore hold, but Fleury didn't bite on the fake and made a flashy glove save. Morrison lost the puck a little and Fleury made an easy stop on him after a Colby Armstrong hook. Moore got a penalty shot after a Welch hold but was stopped by Thibault with the blocker. Jonathan Filewich scored from right on top of the crease, converting a nifty pass from Erik Christensen, who was behind the net. That made it 3-0 White. Brooks Orpik was held by Andre Roy, but missed the net on his shot attempt.

Late in the period, Evgeni Malkin scored the goal of the tournament. His line was rushing the zone and Ryan Malone hit Malkin who was trailing him and Mark Recchi. Malkin dropped back to Sergei Gonchar, and slid between a couple defenders into the right wing circle and opened up for a pass. Gonchar held it for a minute, dished to Malkin and he one-timed it past Fleury. It was a rocket of a shot. He was pretty jazzed and gave it a little fist pump. The rest of his linemates mobbed him and everyone was all smiles.

For the second period, Dany Sabourin was in for White and Andrew Penner for Black.

Wallace was hooked by Dixon, but Sabourin stopped him on the penalty shot. Maxime Talbot trickled one through Sabourin after a Jarkko Ruutu hold to get his team within 1 at 2-3. Ryan Whitney was held by Malkin and faked Penner down before putting a wrister over him on the blocker side. White's lead was back to 2 at 4-2. Mark Eaton was stopped by Sabourin after another Moore hold. Malkin was interfered with by Moore, but hit the pipe. Jordan Staal was hooked by Scuderi, but Sabourin didn't buy any of his moves and stuffed him with the left pad. Ryan Stone scored an even-strength goal from Connor James and Staal to get Black to within 1 again at 3-4. A rebound went behind the net, Sabourin was looking one way for it and it came out the other side. Stone had an empty net. Sersen got clobbered in the corner by Mathieu Roy and was down for a little bit. Sabourin made an easy save on the penalty shot. Kennedy tied the game at 4 after another Dixon hook. Letang hooked Talbot very late in the game, giving him a chance to be the hero. He took advantage, beating Sabourin with move to the backhand and shooting 5 hole. Letang was within inches of catching him and just missed Talbot's stick ad he began his move.

Today's game was easily the most physical of the three. Hits were being thrown more and were being thrown harder. Crosby and Talbot got into it quite a few times, getting very chippy out there. Playing like that will get Talbot the 4th line job for sure.

Jordan Staal provided examples of why he was a second overall pick and why he still has things to work on in juniors. On one shift, he was able to catch Scuderi of guard, get around him with a move, and get off a pretty decent shot on goal. He also showed that once he has time to get going, he can move through center ice very well. It's the first two steps he needs to improve.

On a different shift, Letang caught up to him from behind and shouldered him into the wall, separating him from the puck. A moment later, Letang out muscled him again, putting Staal on the ice. His passes were inconsistent today too. Some were really nice and others missed the mark by a couple of feet, were bad ideas, or both. He's very talented but he's still very raw. Another year with the Petes will do him a lot of good, especially if he improves on his first step.

Practice Notes:

In the Group A session, Fleury got beat 5-10 times in a row during 2 on 0 drills and was getting mad. The last run through it, Christensen decided to take the puck across the crease instead of passes and Fleury dumped him.

During 2 on 1 drills, Coach Michel Therrien stopped them for a minute to repeat a couple of things. You could hear him stressing communication with the goalies to the defensemen. He has done a lot of instructing away from the board, particularly during the breakout and forechecking drills.

He introduced a new forechecking drill when two coaches served as defensemen. They would be positioned below the goal line. A puck was dumped down to one of them and the three forwards would go in. The first guy was supposed to force a pass over to the other coach (defenseman). The second forwards closes off that guy and the third takes the puck.

After that, there was a 5 on 5 drill that ran half-ice. It was a combination forechecking/breakout drill. You could see how the new forechecking drill led to this one.

At the end of the first practice, the coaches had put all the pucks on top of the net while the players stretched. Once that was done, Whitney grabbed one and was passing it around with LeClair. Dan Bylsma, an assistant for Wilkes Barre skated over and jokingly asked "What part of 'get off the ice' don't you understand?" Bylsma has brought an incredible amount of enthusiasm to the rink every practice. I think he's going to be a good guy to have with the kids at Wilkes Barre.

The other session ran all of the same drills. At one point, while the forwards were doing the 3 man forechecking drill, the defensemen were involved in a shooting and passing drill at the other end. A defenseman would take a shot from center point, then another was dumped into a corner. That defenseman had to go retrieve it and pass to the next defenseman in line. During this drill Thibault got drilled in the middle of the forehead by Welch. He was down for a minute but got back up and in net. He was shaking his head for a while, and at the end of practice he and Gilles Meloche were looking at his mask.

Now the team will head to Canada. I would guess some cuts will be made today unless they want to travel with 50-60 guys.